Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

The massive kitchen island unit -  good job they didn't drop it! Having had a good rant to Mum earlier on this evening about the general lack of progress with the building work on the Barn I'm going to try not to bang on about it here. Suffice to say that the much anticipated wow factor of having the new fitted furniture and kitchen worktops was massively over shadowed by the rubbish everywhere and the inability of anyone other than Sharps to finish a task once started. This week is crunch time - I just hope everyone understands that time is running out if we have any chance of making the completion date. That's enough - I don't want to think about it anymore! So what else has been happening? The kids are completely back into the swing of school and are now very comfortable with their routine of twice weekly covid tests and, although they don't like it, wearing a mask all day. Despite all the disruption they have engaged really well and are clearly enjoying being ba

Izzy's birthday cake for me... we are none of us sure she nailed the design!!! All I want for my birthday is planning permission... and some work surfaces in the kitchen... and a house that is registered with the council so that we can try and sort a phone line and internet services... and the list goes on (and on and on). This Saturday we did our normal trip to see how the Barn is progressing and I will admit to feeling pretty disheartened. We arrived to find that the dripping pipe we had pointed out in the utility room last weekend was still dripping, and instead of being a small leak, quickly fixed, it was now a huge damp patch all over the back wall. When Glenn touched the plaster board it disintegrated in his hands, leaving a huge hole - great! I feel like we are one step forward (this week Glenn made the surround for the bins / log stack and the block paving almost got finished) and three steps back (utility room / painting still not finished / media room plug socket still no

Betty 1, Hoover 0 It's official, Betty is a teenager and don't we know it. Yesterday I was trying to do a rapid tidy up with the  hoover before yoga and ran out of time. I stupidly thought "I'll unplug it and leave it here until I can finish off..."  I got back to it 90 mins later to find that Betty had rearranged the plug and lead by chewing through it - great. She's also completely single minded and if she's set her mind to something (chasing a bird, playing with a pine cone while we are trying to walk, greeting another dog...), she will give it her sole attention. She has worked out that the best way of getting her way when we are out and about is to sit down very neatly and just wait until whatever it is she is interested in comes to her - it generally works! She also likes to settle herself down at road junctions and watch the world go by - she would happily sit for hours and watch passing cars / people / wildlife! This weekend Abi and I set off for S